


Sol Invictus

by toraffles



Category: One Piece
Genre: Cross-Posted on FanFiction.Net, Epic Friendship, F/M, Female Monkey D. Luffy, Multi, Polyamory, Reverse Harem, Rule 63, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-10
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-24 16:12:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,406
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15634185
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toraffles/pseuds/toraffles
Summary: Even as she stormed through the world like an atomic bomb, Luffy knew she couldn't protect everybody with these two small hands. Of course she knew that. But... she would try. With these memories of that other world, by god would she try.





	1. transmigration (or something like that)

**Author's Note:**

> this is a repost. much love to glossary for helping! more tags to be added as story proceeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **toraffles:** that first chapter was from 2014... im rereading it and i hate it  
>  **glossary:** want to add a note? something like, "if i could talk to my past self, i'd tell her: lol"  
>  **toraffles:** i'd actually tell her: "i'd say you could do better than this, but actually you couldn't. at least you tried. ✩"

Heat.

It was warm.

She did not hunger.

She could not breathe, but it was okay. She didn't have to.

Someone was singing.

Never had she been this content before.

She slept.

* * *

Pressure.

The darkness around her pulsed and pulsed and  _pulsed_  as she twisted and turned and rearranged her body. The wetness in her lungs was beginning to make itself apparent, as it was supposed to do. She could not breathe yet, but there was no rush.

A  _squeeeeze_  of her head and she was out, wet and pink and out, and oh, it was so free out here.

She smiled.

The remaining fluid was sputtered out with a little help from someone she couldn't see and then she took her first breath. It was cold.

As if in tandem to her thoughts, a warm hand began to pat her down with a soft cloth before wrapping her up in another. She was lifted into arms that clutched with a strength only belied by the way they trembled.

"Come closer, my love... it's our child. Our daughter."

She knew that voice. It had sung to her often, had spoken softly of darlings and loves and dreams. She blearily blinked open her eyes.

Just a few scant inches away was the face of a woman, hallowed but beautiful. Sharp, tapered jaw line and high, thin brows and a straight nose. Her damp brown hair fell in waves framing pale cheeks and large, soulful brown eyes. The woman felt like  _mother_.

The woman was crying.

 _Why are you sad?_  she wanted to ask.  _Don't be sad. Don't cry._

What came out instead were a series of snuffles, so she settled instead for smiling the biggest smile she could manage, her eyes nearly crinkling shut with the effort. She must have done something wrong though, because the woman began to cry harder, even as she smiled back.

"Look, she even has your smile."

Shadows shifted as a dark shape emerged from their embrace. "She's so  _small_..."

She knew this voice too. It had spoken of revolution and apology and promise, of  _I will make things better, I will change things, for you for us for the child._

"She's beautiful. Our beautiful little Luffy. Won't you hold her?"

The shadow flinched. "I can't, not with these hands... I don't deserve—"

"Your daughter wants to be held, can't you see?" Luffy –  _was that her name? But she was so sure her name was something else... And this name, Luffy, was one that she knew, she_ knew _, but it was not hers, except now it was_  – obligingly lifted her pudgy baby arms and made grabbing motions towards the cloaked man. "Please, Dragon."

Dragon –  _and this name was one she also knew, but where, how?_ – hesitantly stepped closer and a large, tanned hand emerged from the dark folds of his cloak. A single finger stroked her cheek. It was warm. Her head automatically turned toward it and she burbled happily.

His stiff shoulders visibly relaxed and when the woman –  _mother_  – pushed Luffy to him, he reached out to cradle her properly.

"Hello, little one," he said to her. A squared, firm jaw became apparent from the shadows of his mantle and a gentle smile curled the corners of his mouth. She grinned back at him with toothless gums.

"See? Nothing to worry about..."

But even as Mother said that, shouting began to erupt from outside the wooden walls. Gunshots. Her eyesight was still limited to several inches, but something bright began to blaze outside the window. For a brief moment, the shadows underneath Dragon's –  _father's_  – cowl lifted, revealing a face that she had never seen with these eyes, but knew all the same: Monkey D. Dragon, leader of the Revolutionaries. He lacked the distinctive red tattoos, but it was him all the same, and she did not  _understand_ , this wasn't  _possible_...

His smile dissolved like a wisp of smoke. "They've found us."

" _How_?!"

A chorus of yipping sounded from outside.

"Bloodhounds."

Mother's face was cast in grim relief. "That means they don't know about Luffy... Thank god..."

"I'll hold them off. Hide her." Father tried to push Luffy into Mother's arms, but the woman would have none of that.

"No, Dragon, let me! They might hesitate to shoot me, but  _you_ —"

"You're in no condition to fight  _their_  soldiers. Just focus on keeping the both of you alive." He settled her in the blankets collected at the foot of the bed, and turned to leave. Before he could, a pale hand shot out and grabbed the neck of his cloak. Mother leaned over her and tugged Father down into a desperate kiss.

"Don't die, Dragon. I love you!"

"I will try. I... love you too."

With that, Father rushed out of their small cabin, a cloud of fabric billowing in his wake. Mother's blurry figure barricaded the door and turned to her, strained features coming back into crisp focus as she ran to the bed with a rifle in hand. She pushed the side of the bed frame until it was a couple of feet to the left of where it had been, and Luffy turned in her bundle to see what the woman was doing. Though her instincts demanded it, she carefully did not cry and fuss, because she had managed to gather that her existence was to be a secret from those who were shouting outside the wooden walls.

The woman had managed to scrape off a layer of the packed dirt floor to reveal what appeared to be an expanse of dull, grainy gray to her undeveloped eyes. A square slab of it was lifted up, and then another silver trap door, and Mother's hand disappeared into the darkness to fumble at something.

Light suddenly illuminated the inside of what Luffy now realised to be a hidden bunker. Mother grabbed her and the wet, lightly blooded sheets atop the bed and hurried down what had to be a set of stairs. The fabrics were discarded haphazardly on the floor but she herself was tucked carefully into a pre-prepared crib with soft blankets and stuffed animals and little infant toys. Luffy glanced around to see that the rest of the room was filled with boxes and crates and chests and barrels, as well as the looming, blurred form of a large dresser. Something that looked like a small kitchen was shoved into the back corner. The cabin above had been almost barren, but this place was filled to the brim, all of it probably food and clothes and other necessary supplies. If they were being hunted, she could understand the precaution.

Mother placed a bottle of something warm beside her in the crib and bent over her, shaking hands smoothing the blankets snugly over Luffy's body.

"Be free, my child. Be freer than your father and I were, freer than anyone else in the world." A dull crash resounded from the door of the cabin above. Mother tucked the blanket around her one final time, her movements soft but rushed. "Always remember that I love you now and will love you always. I will be watching you and your father from heaven." Cracked, shuddering lips pressed themselves against her forehead. "Welcome to the world, Monkey D. Luffy."

She could see Mother stand up, her rifle in hand, and run out to shut the metal lid of the bunker. She heard the stone slab being dragged over the opening, heard dull thuds that must have been dirt being kicked back to cover the discrepancies, the groaning of the bed being pushed back. For a few moments there was nothing. And then the ringing silence was shattered by a great crash and a hoarse, wrathful scream, thudding bodies and the booming reports of gunshots, echoing through the underground like a nightmare.

Her heart ached.

It felt as if she'd lost something she didn't even get the chance to have.

Tears dribbled down her rounded face, though she remained dutifully silent. For the first time since gaining cognizance in this new world, Monkey D. Luffy cried.

* * *

Hours later, Luffy was awakened by a banging noise. Temperamental tears sprang to her eyes as she grumbled at the interruption of her sleep.

Heavy footsteps thudded down the steps and a large man with wild salt and pepper hair came into sight. As he approached the crib, individual features became more pronounced, as did the moisture gathering in the crinkles branching from his dark eyes. She knew this face too – Monkey D. Garp, Hero of the Marines, grandfather of Luffy.  _Her_ grandfather. He lifted her from her bed and held her at eye level, studying her features with a grin. She gurgled and stretched out a plump little hand.

He laughed at this, deep and booming. "So even my stupid son can have such a cute kid. It must be your mother's genes!" But then the outburst of mirth came to an abrupt end and the tears collected in the corner of his eyes suddenly spilled over. "That stupid, stupid idiot of a boy. If he had just come to me first... Trying to do everything on his own, and look where that got him!"

Luffy's brows scrunched and she tried to pat his cheeks dry with her palms, even as responding tears sprang to her own eyes. It hurt, to see a powerful man breaking down like this.

But his tears only came faster. "Dragon, you damned fool! How can you entrust your child to me, when I couldn't even protect you and your wife? I'm so sorry I can't even look my damn son in the eye!"

Luffy whined and her lower lip began to tremble.

"Ah! No! Don't cry!"

 _How can you start sobbing in front of a newborn and then tell her not to cry, you dummy?!_  Luffy thought, as she bawled her distress for the world to hear.

They must have been quite a sight; a tiny newborn and a large, graying man, standing in the middle of an underground bunker crying their eyes out, their only bond gone off to wage war on the world.

Luffy tired first, her cries fading to soft breaths as exhaustion took hold of her once more. As she nodded off in the cradle of her grandfather's elbow, she heard him saying, "I swear to you, Dragon, I won't let Luffy's happiness be torn away like your wife was. Even though I couldn't stop all of this, Luffy at least..."

The next time she awoke to the groaning of a ship's timbers. The sea sang a soft, rushing lullaby and the waves rocked her little crib in an attempt to lure her back to sleep, but there were more important matters at hand. She coughed in discomfort at her hoarse throat, and thought it strange, because she'd always been a very quiet crier before... before... before what, exactly?

This was not her first life, of this she was sure. She had memories of another, a place where supernations waged war with the energy of split atoms and the planet that sustained them was called Earth and perhaps both least and most important, such things called 'manga' existed, pictures and words that told stories of different worlds.

How could she be Luffy? The entire story was carried on the back of his charisma, his ability to attract people and their unfaltering loyalty. How could she possibly do such a thing? She had never been much of a people person, not anything near enough to even  _try_  to emulate what Luffy was.

In her  _Before_... The way she was Before, it had made her uncomfortable to be disliked, made her anxious, made life difficult, and so she usually hadn't been anything less than polite, pleasant, amiable, with a grin and a friendly word to share with those who approached her. But it had also been rare for her to reach out her hand farther than that hesitant wave, rare for her to attempt to deepen those bonds into anything more than friendly acquaintanceships. Because if being hated had been difficult, maintaining the close bonds that wrapped Luffy like a warm shawl could be soul-suckingly  _exhausting_ , the effort of making herself interesting for them, conversing about things that they would care to converse about, hiding the parts of herself than she knew would be scorned – it had worn her down to her bare bones. She and the greater part of society had always seemed to be out of sync, somehow, and trying to change herself to catch up every time she ventured outside had almost been too much to handle.

So, if nothing else, she had always admired Luffy's ability to be oblivious to everything he felt was unnecessary. He was led by his heart and his fists, and that was exactly what she had wanted in life, to be comfortable in her own skin, to be able to ignore all the derisive scoffs, to charge forth with only her own determination and prevail against all odds. That tough hide of his was a gift that she wished had been bequeathed to her as well.

And now...

Now...

And now she  _was_  Luffy, though apparently a female version of him.

Then, perhaps... perhaps, instead of worrying and worrying and worrying that she couldn't live up to his character, perhaps she could instead see this as an opportunity to  _be_  the fearless warrior that she had always wanted to be. She had the story line on her side, after all; the Plot Matrix wasn't so weak that a few different actions here and there would change the tale overly much.

She could be who she wanted; she  _would_  be who she wanted. Being who she 'had to be' had hurt her, had killed her inside, had made her relieved about  _her own death_ , accident though it was. No more. She had a second chance, this time. She had a second chance to live her life the way she wanted to live her life, with her heart in everything she did, instead of bundled up in layers upon layers of protection. And this time, she was determined to  _enjoy_  life.

Yes, she decided. She wouldn't just act like Luffy, she would  _become_  Luffy – no.

Luffy would become  _her_.

This was her life now, and so help anyone who said otherwise.

She was Monkey D. Luffy, and she would live life  _her_  way, foreknowledge or not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Luffy has received knowledge of the OP series and a few extra traits, such as the tendency to favour logic. Everything else remains the same. If you can imagine Luffy being a girl, that is who I am writing about, rather than an OC-insert (despite how it may seem right now). Yes there will be romance, inasmuch as a character such as Luffy is capable of experiencing. Finally, domino effects are very much a thing.


	2. protagonist no jutsu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i cleaned the chapter up and did a bunch of editing. it's a bit better, and also takes itself even less seriously than before.

"Bye-bye, Makino, Mayor and the rest! I'm setting off, everyone!"

Luffy stood alone in her little fishing boat, waving madly at the collection of villagers on the dock as she pushed off. She could see the tip of Dogra's turban peeking out from behind a wall a little ways away and grinned, glad that the Dadan Family had come to see her off, hidden though they were.

"Setting off to be a pirate, what would Garp-san say?" the Mayor hollered, even though he had been the one to give her the fishing boat in the first place. Luffy laughed at him.

"Gramps can say whatever he wants. I've already decided!" She cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Goodbye Foosha village! I'm off to be the Pirate King!"

"Good luck, Luffy!" came the responding cheer. She smiled and sat down and began to plan her course. Unlike the original Luffy, she had not dismissed the offer of a small boat in lieu of a dinghy, since she preferred to have more space for her supplies. Her stomach required a frightening amount of food and she didn't fancy being hungry out at sea, after all.

This also meant that she couldn't allow herself to be sucked into that huge whirlpool, because then what would happen to her precious meat? So, even though her navigational skills were subpar at best, she would at least try her best to plot her route.

"Let's see..." According to the map, the island where Alvida was hiding out was to the west of Foosha Village. The compass was currently pointing away from Foosha, so that meant she had to turn the ship to the... right.

Luffy stared at the sails attached to the only mast, confused. How were you supposed to turn directions with these things? It had something to do with the rudder and the wind, she knew. And if she wasn't mistaken, the process also seemed to involve some very manly grunting and a bit of shouting. Luffy squinted at the sails for a moment longer before she gave that up as a lost cause and turned to the large paddles instead. She might as well turn the boat the right way and hope for the best.

The moment she managed to get the boat to point somewhere vaguely westerly, a strong wind began to blow in from the east, pushing her forward. According to the compass, she was going straight to Goat Island.

"Wow!" she said, laughing. "It really pays off to be me."

So Luffy settled down, grabbed a box of beef jerky, and waited.

* * *

In a shocking turn of events, it turned out that the ability to wait was not one of Luffy's many talents. 

In the short time it had taken her to reach her destination, she had gotten so bored that she'd decided to test exactly how far she could stretch by wrapping herself around the mast several times over. This resulted in a knot of limbs so complex that she couldn't differentiate her left foot from her right, and she couldn't hope to explain how her head had ended up resting on top of her knees wrong-side down.

This, she realized as she tried to untangle her body, had probably not been a good idea. 

A little alarmed at the sight of the tiny island slipping slowly past her boat, Luffy shot her only freed limb out to a sturdy looking tree and pulled, trying to anchor onto shore before her boat drifted away. A grin took her face when she felt the bottom of the bow sliding over grainy sand and vegetation, although this soon fell into a grimace upon hearing the first of a series of sharp cracks. Luffy stretched her neck out as best she could to peer worriedly over the ship's railing.

Her own boat was fine, to her relief, but a closer look revealed something a bit more worrying: floating by alongside her boat, bobbing with the ocean currents, were planks of wood and splintered pieces of debris. Was that—

It was. Luffy gaped as she watched the remnants of Coby's makeshift dinghy coffin drift off. There was nothing much to be said, really, other than that the boy was pitifully unlucky. What were the chances that she'd arrive at this tiny island at the exact location he'd hidden his boat, entangled in such a situation that made it impossible for her to check the shore before having to physically drag herself onto it? She would have felt very sorry for him if she hadn't come here specifically to meet him. 

The hull of her own boat hadn't so much as gained a scratch at the impact, though. _What a hardy little ship_ , she thought cheerfully to herself. 

Unfortunately, the tree being gripped by Luffy's toes was not so robust. One last tug and the timber snapped right in half, and Luffy only barely managed to let go of it before the entire thing came flying at her face. Her leg whipped back to her and the force of its return unraveled the rest of her body from the mast. The resultant momentum sent her sailing through the air, luckily in the direction of the island rather than into the ocean.

Luffy laughed as the wind carried her along, loud and carefree and exhilarated. The breeze whipped at her clothing, and she had to keep a hand on her hat to keep it from flying off, but there was something thrilling about flying without knowing when or where she would land.

When gravity finally decided it missed her too much to let her be, she was brought crashing through a flimsy wooden roof in a meteoric descent to earth. Fortunately, her none-too-gentle landing was broken by something plump and squishy.

"Ow!" cried her unfortunate new cushion. "What the fuck?"

Luffy looked up. With great delight, she realized that she had landed exactly where she wanted to be: next to a terrified Coby being accosted by two scruffy looking men. 

She peered down at the groaning mass of flesh under her, still laying dazed on the floor. Make that three.

"An intruder!" the man with lanky blond hair roared, leveling a sword at her. "How'd you get onto this island? Coby, you pink haired little shit, did you do this?"

Coby's attempts to stutter out a negative went unheard, buried under the noise of Luffy's general existence. Presently, this included the happy exclamation, "Woah, I flew! Did you see that, Coby?"

The expression on the boy's face at this could best be described as horror stricken. One of the thugs barked, "So you  _did_  sneak her in. Don't you know what Lady Alvida'll say when she sees?"

"N-no, I didn't!" Coby whimpered.

"Oh yeah? Then how'd she know your name?"

"You said it right in front of me," Luffy pointed out, highly amused.

There was no arguing with this. Goon Two glared first at Luffy and then at his cackling comrade, shaking his sabre in both of their general directions as if unsure who he was more disgruntled by.

It was at this point that the grunt still being crushed under her finally managed to collect his wits around him and shove her off. Luffy carelessly allowed herself to spill onto the ground, and then sat up with her legs crossed while the thug leapt to his feet.

"You bitch!" Goon Three hollered, with great volume. His chest heaved with effort as his hand fumbled for the cutlass at his waist. "I'll kill you!"

"Wait," said Goon One, putting an arm out in front of the frothingly furious Goon Three. "That'd be such a waste of a pretty face, don't you think? We won't have many other chances like this."

Luffy, still sitting on the ground, blinked round brown eyes at the three men as they loomed over her, their eyes drawn to the voluptuous view peeking over her red vest. Coby, clearly uncomfortable with the situation, somehow managed to pick enough pieces of his courage up from the ground to protest, "H-hey, I don't think that's such a good idea — Lady Alvida will be very angry if she f-f-finds out..."

"Just because you go around licking the captain's shoes, doesn't mean we have to. Just keep your mouth shut, and maybe we'll let you have the scraps when we're done," said Goon Two. The three of them shared a villainous chortle and began to close in on Luffy, one of the thugs idly kicking Coby to the side when he tried to interfere.

Goon Three leered at her. "Just sit still, little girl. I still have to pay you back for what you just did to me." He made a grab for her hat, looking as if he meant to toss it aside. Luffy's gaze sharpened when she saw that his grubby fingers were a hair's breath from the rim of her treasure, and she swiftly reared away from him. The thug's hand met only empty air.

"Hey you," Luffy said, suddenly rising to her feet in a single fluid motion. Her hat cast heavy shadows on her face as a slow, predatory grin spread over her teeth. She tilted her head back to reveal wickedly gleaming eyes. "Don't touch the hat."

* * *

"Okay there, Coby?" asked the girl. She turned to beam openly at him, all of her white teeth on sunny display.

"Y-you beat them!" he exclaimed. The fight had finished so quickly that he had almost missed it; without warning, the girl had lashed out, once, twice, and that was enough to bring all three men to a wordless faint, their ugly faces smashed into the dirt.

Coby gaped, amazed, at this strange girl who had come flying out of nowhere with nothing to herald her arrival but the straw hat on her head and a face-splitting grin. Anyone would agree that she didn't look like much at first glance — or at least not much of a fighter, anyway. She was so small and skinny that it seemed like her limbs would break with one careless swing, and her large doe eyes gave her an innocent kind of charm that simply didn’t suit violence; she looked too air-headed, too pretty, too _weak_.

But then you looked at her again, when her eyes flashed with promise, when she laid waste to the men who had tormented you for the last two years, bare hands against swords, and you could no longer ignore the lean, corded muscle layering her exposed arms and legs, the scritch-scratch of scars along her knuckles, the confident set to her spine and shoulders, the wicked quirk to her mouth that appeared at a challenge. Despite how she looked, this was a warrior — a real one, not like those thugs on Alvida's ship.

"It's nothing to get so worked up over," she told him with a blink, her smile giving way to a stern face. "Anyway, I didn't like the way they were kicking you around."

"Thank you," he said, touched. No one had bothered themselves over his well-being for a long time now. It wasn't much — anyone from his home village would have agreed with her — but human decency was hard to come by on a pirate ship, especially one run by Iron Mace Alvida. Speaking of... "You'd better get out of here before Lady Alvida sees you. She's much stronger than these guys, she might even kill you!" After all, Alvida detested any woman more beautiful than herself, and this girl was far more than that. Indeed, she was the antithesis of the pirate captain, and that would surely piss Alvida off.

"Hmm..." the girl replied thoughtlessly. She wasn't paying him any mind, instead peering into the stacked crates with great interest. "Hey, are these vegetables?"

"Ye—no, listen! It's _Iron Mace Alvida_. You're in big danger if you stay here; you have to get off this island. I don't know how you got here, but I— I— I can give you a way out!"

She gave Coby a look that clearly spelt out her doubts on his intelligence. "If I go, what about you?"

"Huh?"

"How are you going to explain them?" the girl asked, gesturing at the men lying comatose on the ground with a careless wave of her hand.

"O-oh," Coby said, faltering. Actually, he hadn't thought about that. But though the thought of punishment beating made him quiver in his shoes, he still managed to tell her, "We don't both need to face her. It's better if I do it alone, since she'll probably spare my life but she'll definitely kill you. I've already given up on escaping anyway; there's no point in me trying."

"You were thinking of escaping?" she said, blinking at him. "Huh... yeah, you _do_ look too wimpy to be in a pirate crew."

He slumped forward at this. "It's true. I got roped into her crew by mistake," Coby confessed morosely. He looked at his feet. "I— I'll never forget that fateful day two years ago... I just wanted to go fishing, and instead, I stepped foot on a pirate ship...!"

"You're an idiot, aren't you?" she commented cheerfully, draping herself against a tall stack of crates and going up on her toes to peer into another box.

"Urk..." That was a piercing thing to say to someone who prided himself on intelligence, if absolutely nothing else. Coby was probably the smartest person in the Alvida Pirates; even the captain had said that if not for his vast knowledge of the sea, he'd be dead meat already. A backhanded compliment perhaps, but he took what he could from whatever was available, lest he spiral into further depression. "How did  _you_ get on this island, miss?"

"I sailed here, of course. Ah, my boat crashed through this coffin-looking thing while I was bringing it to shore. Do you know what that was?"

No way. Surely she wasn't talking about—

"Did it have two square paddles?!"

"Hm," she looked up from the box and tapped a finger to her bottom lip. "Yup. I'm pretty sure I saw those floating by."

"Ah," Coby groaned and slumped even further, looking almost like he was about to cry. All his hard work, gone in an instant. Even though he wouldn't have used the boat, it still hurt to think about. "That was mine... Sorry, I guess I can't help you get away. But if you still have your boat you should be fine."

"That was yours? It looked like a little kid got hold of a bunch of wood and started hammering."

Coby dropped to the ground in miserable defeat. "I spent two years making that."

"You don't look too upset for someone who's had years worth of effort being ruined," the girl noted, her arm stuck halfway into a pile of carrots. "What was it for, anyway?"

"I was going to escape in it. But then I keep thinking about what would happen to me if Alvida catches me and I..." Coby shivered and held himself. "I couldn't do it! It's impossible, it's just impossible!"

"Ah-ha! So you're gutless, on top of being stupid and clumsy and wimpy," she laughed, looking back to her searching. "You won't make a good companion to the future king of pirates."

"King of pirates…?"

"Yup." Her grin grew, larger than should have been humanly possible, her eyes squeezed into upturned crescents from the size of it. "I'm going to be Pirate King, you know!"

" _You're what?_ Don't you know what that means!?"

* * *

As Coby went on and on about the difficulties of becoming Pirate King – like she didn't know all that already, honestly – Luffy turned to consider the crates of food surrounding her.

_Lettuce, lettuce, where is the lettuce..._

Crispy vegetables were a bit of a guilty pleasure for her. She loved salad and everything that went into them; tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, carrots, onions, cucumbers… There wasn't all that much to be ashamed of, it was just that Ace and Sabo had always made fun of her whenever they saw her eating one – something about it being a girly thing to do – so she had learned to do it in secret. It had become such a habit to hide her love affair with vegetables that even after Ace had set sail for the greater seas Luffy had continued to tuck herself away when snacking on them.

She patiently tried to wait out Coby's tirade by peeling off a dewy green leaf from a head of cabbage and nibbling on it, only to have that patience snapped when he finally said, "It's impossible! You'll die! You'll never be able to do it, never, never, never—!"

He was stopped by a fist coming down on his head.

Luffy angled her hands on her hips and stared down at Coby, her expression serious. "Why should death stop me? What's so scary about dying? More than that, it's scarier to have died without having lived life at all. What the point of living if you waste it doing things you regret?" she said, a snap in her words if not in her voice.

Without conscious thought, her hand reached up to pull her straw hat from her head. Luffy gazed at it, her eyes fond and distant. After having been put into his shoes, she could understand why the original Luffy had always done this when talking about his hopes and dreams. There was something about this hat… It called to mind endless seas and open skies and bright, bright red hair and a certain kind of yearning, a strange, wonderful  _ache_  deep within her heart.

"I don't have a death wish, Coby. I'm not suicidal or anything. I don't  _want_ to die. But I've already set my heart on my goal, so I'll just live every day to the fullest until I get there. Even if the chance of me becoming Pirate King is only a billionth of a percent, even if I die in the middle of the journey, I don't mind. At least I tried, right? And you know, maybe I'm being full of myself, but... I believe I can do it."

She believed  _Monkey D. Luffy_ could do it.

It was the same thing, in the end.

"Then!" Coby hollered. Luffy glanced at the suddenly fired up boy with large eyes and a small smile. "Do you… do you think I can join the marines? We'll become enemies, but it's been my dream since childhood; I want to be a marine and protect people and fight bad guys! Do you think I can do it?"

"I dunno," she said. She cocked her head to the side and stared straight into his wide-open eyes. "What do you think?"

"I-I think… I can do it. I'm really gonna be a marine! I'll get away from this rotten place even if I have to risk my life to do it, and I'll become a marine and then I'll capture Alvida and put her away for good—!"

Without warning, a large, spinning object came crashing into the roof of the little shed. Luffy immediately shoved Coby to the ground and shielded him with her body as debris rained down on the two of them. "Who's gonna put who away, _brat_?!"

"AH! A—Alvida-sama!" Coby yelped beside Luffy's ear. She winced and rolled off of him, plopping herself onto her bottom while the boy tried to do his utter best to melt into the ground.

"You little shit! I thought you were slacking off but you were actually plotting escape," Alvida roared, stomping towards the half-destroyed shack. Her gaze fell on Luffy and she stopped in place, her face twisting into a ferociously ugly scowl. "Who's this chit? A bounty hunter? Ha!" she scoffed, giving Luffy a thorough once over. Apparently deciding that Luffy was not nearly a threat, Alvida dismissed her and continued, "You know full well that only Demon Beast Roronoa Zoro would be a match for me, not some weak little girl like this. So, I'll give you one chance to repent. Who's the fairest on the seas, Coby?"

The boy scraped himself to his knees and kowtowed to the larger captain, a nervous giggle escaping his mouth. "W-well, of course it's—"

Luffy grabbed Coby by the scruff of his shirt and abruptly stood up, physically lifting him to his feet as she did so. "And here I was, thinking that you wouldn't be such so darn ugly if you just lost a bit of weight. There's nothing to be done for a bad personality."

" _WHAT!?_ "

Alvida and the motley collection of pirates behind her gaped stupidly at Luffy, who just cocked her head and smiled. She knew exactly who this was, but she had to give her new friend a chance to prove his guts, so she said, "Who's this tough-looking old biddy, Coby?"

"Holy sh—"

"She just..."

"No way!"

Coby sweated furiously as he shook Luffy by her shoulders. "You have to take that back! Alvida-sama is— Alvida-sama... is..." The two of them met eyes, and she smiled knowingly at him. Coby blinked rapidly and then his brows furrowed with determination. He turned to his ex-captain, his fists clenched and tears in his eyes, and shouted, "Alvida is... the ugliest old hag of all!!"

The large form of Alvida loomed dangerously over them both, but Luffy just threw her head back and laughed.

"You piece of shit!" Alvida screamed, throwing back her iron mace for a vicious swing.

"WAAAAAH!" Coby screamed, cowering under his hands.

Luffy tipped back her hat to hang at her neck as she launched herself in front of her new friend. "You're great, Coby. Good for you!"

Her face twisted with malice, Alvida swung her mace violently down on Luffy's head. Everyone present winced in anticipation of the girl's assuredly gruesome death. Coby squeezed his eyes shut. The mace smashed into its target with all the force Iron Mace Alvida had in her body.

But when Luffy received the full brunt of the blow without a single flinch, with her ever present smile still on her lips, Alvida's expression loosened with shock. "Impossible!" she cried. "No one survives the iron mace! Who the hell are you?"

Luffy found it a bit funny that it took this long for anyone to ask. Her grin stretched wider, and she announced, "My name is Luffy. And — " she threw an arm back, her only visible eye gleaming. "I'm the one who'll be Pirate King!"

A single Pistol, and Alvida was out for the count, her cronies quivering in fear at the sight. As they panicked over her apparent inhuman characteristics, Luffy glared at them and demanded, "Give us all your meat and vegetables!" After all, she'd already cut through half of her food supplies in the day it took to get here, and it wasn't like she didn't already have a boat. To Coby, she smiled and said, "Let's get you to the closest marine base, huh? You're gonna be joining them, after all."

Coby stared up at her, tears streaming down his face, and grinned back.

* * *

Coby couldn't believe this sudden turn of events. Who was this girl, this Luffy? She had blown in like a tempest, decimating everything he'd built up over the past two years, only to replace it with something better, so much better. She shone from the force of her conviction, almost too much for human eyes to bear. She was impossible and wonderful and wanted to recruit Roronoa Zoro — wait, what?

"You're talking crazy again. That guy's a beast, a demon! It'll never happen."

"Hmm... Nope. I've already decided. He's joining my crew. He's going to be my first mate, you know?"

"You can't just decide that kind of thing all on your own!"

She was also selfish and bullheaded and had absolutely no common sense. This would be a long couple of days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imagine two straight lines on a graph, separated by only a few degrees of difference. at the point of intersection, the two lines seem to be almost the same. as you trace backwards, you will see that the two have very separate origins. trace farther, and the distance between those lines becomes distinct and steadily greater.
> 
> this chapter is the point of intersection.
> 
> next chapter involves the first genderbending, and it's not who you think.


End file.
